It never fails to amaze me just how quickly the week passes, even though I am no longer a "busy" person!This week I have been out to lunch twice...Once with my daughter at the weekend, it was so lovely to have a little catch up. She is so busy with work and her life that we don't often get to see each other alone any more and so it is a real treat when that happens.On Tuesday my fishing brother and an old friend met us at our place and we all travelled together to Dunalley for a lovely lunch at Bangor Wine and Oyster Bar, Lovely seafood, lovely sunny outlook over Blackman and Dunalley Bays and the canal, and lovely company...what's not to enjoy? They produce almost everything they provide on their property, including oyster farming, bread making, lamb for the pies, wine and olive products, a very interesting enterprise with delicious end product in a relaxing and low key but sophisticated environment that is a pleasure to visit.

Sarah had asked me to crochet her a "Link" figurine she had found online which turned out to have a free pattern attached, so I had a go...that is all (almost) all I am saying on the matter...except that after three days of frustrating and intense crocheting THIS monstrosity was the best I could do...Mind you...the pattern had been translated from the Japanese by a Japanese speaking American with unknown crochet pattern development skills, then created by me who did not have a clue what Link was meant to look like...not a surprising result really...when you think about it...

I also redid the postcard album...couldn't stand the one I had made previously so I made a recycled dishwasher tablet box album the same size as the pet photograph album I made previously...I'm much happier with the result.

Seven signatures using up recycled book pages holds the postcards easily with space for future additions.

Each PC has a tuck item, such as this tag, to hold them in position. Large PC's are paper clipped to the front or back of each signature.

I noticed that Spotlight had a yarn sale recently and reluctantly purchased some of their Moda Vera Jazz polyester yarn...A few tears ago while working in New South Wales, I made myself a pair of "slug socks" as they are light, easy to pack in the over night bag, and wear and wash up well. They became quite popular amongst some of my family members and work colleagues who were travelling with me and I was inveigled into knitting far more pairs of these than I had any intention initially of inflicting on the world. Fact is I was asked to make so many of them that I came to loathe the thought of knitting any more. When my couple of pair finally wore out I did not replace them. However, as I really hate wearing conventional slippers and the winter mornings are pretty nippy right now here in Southern Tasmania, I bought enough yarn to make myself two pair...The lads took one look at the finished pair and insisted on going back to buy more of the yarn while it was so cheap so I could knit them a pair each also...we will soon be a family of slug feet!

My new purple slug socks..

Yesterday we drove into Hobart to pick up the Husqvarna from the sewing machine service place and decided, as it was such a lovely clear day and the dusting of snow on the mountain was still evident, that we would drive to the top of Mount Wellington to take some snow photographs to send to the gransters, who always like the thought of snow. As it is school holiday time here, there were quite a few people travelling up the narrow mountain road, walking, tossing snowballs, tobogganing and taking snaps in the clear cold air at the summit. There was little untrammelled snow and few parks so I just took some shots out the car window as we went.

Frosty vegetation and Hobart's Derwent River and view towards the North East from near the summit.

Hobart CBD, Tasman Bridge and view to the East

Wallaby tracks in the snow at the summit of Mt Wellington.

Well, that's about it from here...I am working on some cards and a couple of journals, more about those later...Bye now, thanks for visiting,Di

Well, the album is finished and sent off happily to it's new home...not without drama though! I had a sneaky feeling that things had gone just too smoothly on day one...too smoothly for me anyway. The album was completed apart from the dangly bits for the spine and embellishments. I texted my daughter to see if she wanted the fun-foam daisies I had made put on or left off the front cover...happily she noted that I had spelt the child's name incorrectly...so I had to put that right pronto. How lucky she noted it! Fortunately the thick little word popped off the cover with only very minimal damage, all of which I was able to cover with the new name...so all was good. However, I then realised that all the secret envelopes had the same spelling on their labels! Grr...redid those...and only after I had redone them and were putting them into the album did I realise that I had given two of the six labels the same title....Grrrrrrrrrrr....it was getting very late by now but I did the readjustments of the readjustments and was able to go to bed a moderately happy woman.

Sarah visited today and took me out to lunch at Jackmans & McRoss at New Town. I had a delicious pea pie, roasted mushroom, haloumi and pesto stack, she had a polenta with roasted vegetables. When we got home I was able to finish the dangles and charms on the album to her specifications. I didn't want to over do it. I had bought a pack of Kaisercraft Sparklets in appropriate colours and so popped them the pocket with the stickers, wrapped it in tissue paper and sent it off. Now I am anxious to start a new, larger tea dyed album with a couple of the lovely old books we bought a couple of weeks ago. I bought a ream of A3 yesterday so I have more scope with the sizing of the papers. I saw a lovely idea for decorating the spine stitches with seed beads and buttons on Johanna Clough's You Tube channel, a young lady with many great ideas in regard to journal making.Anyhow, here are just a couple of final photographs of the album, oh I have to mention a site where I found free downloads of some My Little Pony images...I used them on the six "secret" envelopes and have a moral obligation to alert you to the site...all the other required permissions for use have been met, I hope...

The little 3x2 envies for the "secret" lists...

The completed album, with name correctly spelt!

The spine ornaments...

Well that's it. I promise I won't mention this album ever again! (or show any more photographs! ;). Do you like the fun-foam flowers? I thought they were entirely age appropriate. At four years old she probably makes them at preschool...

Finally today the parcel arrived from Melbourne and I was able to start the child's birthday album my daughter had asked me to make. I had already assembled the pages as per Jen of Eve's tutorial for her Canvas Covers Mini Scrapbook Part 2 and the continuous binding strip, (Hidden Hinge Binding System, thank you, Kathy Orta), cover papers all sorted and I even had a PLAN! and so it was all systems go.All went well today, although I'm' running out of glue...I have actually almost completed the album in a few hours, just a few tags to make tomorrow, and the final tizzying up and it will be done.It is basically an empty album...The child and her mum will have fun putting in her cards, photographs and other mementos from her big day...so not a lot of embellishments to do, though I do want to make a few secret journalling tags of some description. All little girls love secrets and hidden things, so I am still thinking on that. I may even just add some enveloped with journal tags inside, one of my daughters favourite books as a child was one that held envelopes and letters that had to be opened and read over and over and over...This is just a series of project snaps...

This album is economically cut from just one sheet of medium chipboard, Covers are 6 x 8.25, inches with the spine 1.5 inches wide. (Using Imperial measurements here as my cutter is Imperial and the papers and board are American measurements...)

The covers being assembled...

Attaching the spine...

The covers and spine completed...

Ribbon added each side of the spine paper and a spine grommet for charms attached...

Binding device attached...

Inside covers in place...

Matting the pages. These pages require two 12 x 12 sheets of paper to mat them, with about a 1/4 inch of page showing around the mats. It give the album a clean look. and with very little waste of the paper stack used.

Pages attached...Pretty neat, Huh?

Hitch post and hair band closure with a grommet in the back cover to hold the band securely...

A couple of the pages, flaps closed...

The first page, with it's flap extended...

The cover with the title I cut on the Brother ScannCut, attached...

As I won't be the one to embellish this album, I cut out a pile of the cute stickers from the 2 pages of stickers that came with this echo Park paper kit and popped them into a glassine bag. I'm sure they will get used up!

Well, that was a bit of a marathon of photographs! I am pleased with the album, it has gone together well. It was also very nice to just work with a specific paper line and colour range...I usually just make these things with whatever I have about at the time and it is so much easier with a theme (and a plan ;)

Bye now, I am at risk of turning into a pumpkin if I don't get to bed pretty soon!Di

I recently watched a simple You Tube tutorial on a little gate-fold card designed by Katja. In her tutorial she uses the card as a farewell card for a work mate but II thought it might make a good size for a gift card holder...I seem to buy more gift cards now I am less mobile /active, and the two older gransters are getting to an age where they can enjoy picking out gifts for themselves and are able to assist their younger brother to do so ;)I have very fond memories of when I was a child and some (sadly unremembered) wealthy benefactor actually gave me five pounds as a gift on one of my birthdays, the same birthday I received 13 books as presents! What a year! Some of the money was required to be placed in my bank account but I remember so clearly the power of having a purse containing actual money and being able to shop for myself! I never seem to have the right card to use to send off a gift card, although I have tried several formats and also had success with this wedding card...I usually just tuck it inside the accompanying card. However, this tutorial seems to be a nice alternative. The pocket at the centre of the card is just a comfortable fit for a gift card, and while smallish, is rather cute. Being such a small size meant that I was able to make this one entirely from scraps of kraft card stock and patterned paper left over from other projects.

The front of the folded card, tied with dyed seam binding and using 3 of my tiny text flowers

The little tags have a plain back ready for some sentiments...mine are blank because I haven't yet decided the occasion for use.

The back of the card has a tuck pocket and a larger tag for writing a message to the recipient.

The card stands nicely and a gift card fits comfortably in the centre back pocket.

I edged the card all around with gold ink, although it doesn't show well in these photographs.I made the tags by gluing the leftover kraft card stock between two layers of patterned paper, the floral and the lined ledger paper...when dry I die cut it out using TH labels dies. It make a lovely weight almost like purchased chipboard embellishments, with the edges rounded by the die. I will definitely try this trick again!Now I need to make some more with a masculine and ankle biter focus, these will be sure to come in useful around Christmas time when we seem to have a bit of a cluster of birthdays as well as the usual festivities.That's it, bye for now...Di